I’m watching the integration of communications disciplines including media, analyst, internal and executive relations in order to overlap messaging. This intrinsically makes sense to me for the purposes of consistency, message development, speaker execution and most of all….clear communications about your company.

The issue came up about media relations having difficulty getting their arms completely around bloggers, both in terms of influence and keeping track of them. Like teenagers, handling us is analogous to nailing jello to a tree. Not that I’m going to claim any grand knowledge of bloggers and blogging, but part of the success and proliferation of it is a voice more trustworthy than the media. Thousands of fact checkers rather than one reporter getting three sources is an overwhelming numbers game. Also, we do it because of passion, the key blogger trait I find among those that are successful.

There are some phenomenon’s that blogging can take credit for, like the rise of Howard Dean in the 2004 election and the fall of Dan Rather. More close to home is the rise of businesses like RedMonk who base their business on this model. Or this little tidbit…today is the anniversary of Matt Drudge breaking the Monica Lewinsky story. Tell me that isn’t influence in many ways. Now not only did I have to explain to my children the birds and the bee’s, I have to tell them what a Lewinsky is when it was joked about on the radio (true story).

So being non traditional, or bucking the trend is part of the blogging effect or maybe just another phenomenon. Further, it allows bloggers to connect faster, and determine what is the buzz. For example, if something is noteworthy, I’ll have read about it in more than one blog before I see it on the news in my reader(s), and I’ll know it matters, I don’t have to be told by the MSM.

In the quest to reach the traditional media, the issue has come up as to using blogs to influence them.

Which brings me to the point of the title, why not make your announcements on your blog? The answer is I’m not going to sell out to a process (traditional media tactics) that are not as effective or as accurate. While it’s true that I’ve noted some products that interest me from my company, that was the reason I wrote about them, not to shill. In the spirit of this thought, I love my iPod and a lot of other technology and am pretty open about moving to a Mac as soon as I can (sorry Stephen). So I will write about an announcement, but for the appropriate reason.

After spending umpteen years in media relations, it’s not like I don’t know them or identify with the influence problem. You have to constantly up your game or change it to meet the conditions. Handling bloggers or integrating their influence is just the next step in this game. But being asked to post a press release on your blog or make an announcement is out of the question…..unless I think it’s cool, then it’s my interpretation of what I think about it. I imagine that others are like me (I do note that is is not a new topic, but it arises over an over again) and their content is well….their content.

So in essence, blogging is a better mousetrap than the traditional news tactics and sources. If it weren’t, why are they now blogging (or trying to catch up), and trying like heck to report the news as quick (and yet not as accurate) as the blogosphere? Now it’s up to corporate communications to nail that jello to the tree and understand how to influence them. I’ve got a hint, that ship left the port and won’t return….so new tactics are needed, just don’t ask me to post a press release.

So in the spirit of this conversation, let me post this press release:

NOT!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 4:23 pm and is filed under blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.